March 2024: Commission on the Integration of Refugees: From Arrival to Integration: Building Communities for Refugees and for Britain
You may have been aware of this Commission on the Integration of Refugees set up by the Woolf Institute, Cambridge. The Commissioners had a very wide range of views and backgrounds, but found common ground on 16 recommendations for practical, evidence-based and costed alternatives – shifting from a model of migration enforcement to supported integration. The London School of Economics provided the costings. One of the key recommendations is for localisation of delivery with appropriate funding. The report was published in March 2024.
There’s an Executive Summary on pages 8 – 11 of the report attached, in case you’d like to see what they came up with. The report can be accessed here: https://refugeeintegrationuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CIR_Report.pdf
20 March 2024: LAUNCH OF THE COMMISSION’S FINAL REPORT – FROM ARRIVAL TO INTEGRATION: BUILDING COMMUNITIES FOR REFUGEES AND FOR BRITAIN
The Commission on the Integration of Refugees publishes its flagship report today calling for a new deal for refugee integration that works for refugees and wider British society. Based on more than two years of in-depth research, our report includes evidence from more than 1,250 stakeholders, policymakers, journalists, academics, and asylum seekers and refugees themselves. As an independent and broad-based body, the Commission offers a unique example of consensus building across political differences in a polarised and heated public debate; and our report launches on the same day debate on the scheme to send refugees to Rwanda continues in Parliament. The Commission’s recommendations are built on robust and wide-ranging evidence, with the voices of those with lived experience at the heart, and have achieved consensus across the political spectrum.
The new report reveals economic modelling developed for the Commission by the London School of Economics (LSE) which found that if just two of the Commission’s recommendations are implemented the benefits outweigh costs within three years, and by the end of year five produce an overall net economic benefit of £1.2 billion. The two recommendations that would deliver this benefit are English language classes provided from arrival and employment support given at six months, alongside the government meeting its target to process asylum applications within six months.